Pride and Prejudice, Second Questions

READINGS:

 T 25      Pride and Prejudice, Chs. IX-(Part III) Ch. III, pp.117-176

R 27      Pride and Prejudice, Chs.IV-Ch. XIX, pp.176-254

Answer ONE of the following by Friday at 5pm:

1. Though Pride and Prejudice is often seen as the ultimate love story, with Elizabeth conquering Darcy’s pride and Darcy Elizabeth’s prejudice, there are other ways to read it.  Indeed, as Susan Fraiman writes in “The Humiliation of Elizabeth Bennet” (pp.356-368, we’ll read it later): “I am arguing, however, that Darcy woos away not Elizabeth’s “prejudice,” but her judgment entire” (363).  How might we argue that Elizabeth is “tamed” by Darcy’s masculine reason which prevents her from seeing his faults, much as another man (Wickham) seduced her into seeing only Darcy’s flaws?  Is she in love—or simply under the sway of another man?  Is this book, for all its charms, a feminist’s nightmare? 

2. Is Pride and Prejudice ultimately a novel that favors “sense” (the eighteenth-century notion of one’s intellectual powers and reason) or “sensibility” (the late eighteenth/early nineteenth notion of emotion and the sublimity)?  Does Elizabeth learn a more nuanced idea of sensibility from Darcy (or from herself), or do you see her looking past the world of literature to a more reasonable view of men and women?  If you’ve seen or read Sense and Sensibility, does she make the same choice Marianne makes at the end of the novel/film?  Is Darcy another version of Colonel Brandon? 

3. What makes Elizabeth fall in love with Darcy?  Can we pinpoint the moment that she, herself, is aware of it?  Or are we aware of it long before she is, thanks to plentiful hints from the narrator?  What is the crucial ingredient to push her from detestation to “gratitude”?  In other words, how does she come to know him and not her prejudiced vision of him?  (In the same way, could we argue that Elizabeth falls in love with yet another version of Darcy—and an equally prejudiced, Romantic one at that?). 

4. For many readers in the twentieth century, Pride and Prejudice is a novel about class.  Clearly, Darcy distinguishes himself early in the novel by differences in class (which is the main reason he waits so long to propose to Elizabeth); the Bingleys are social upstarts by means of their father’s fortune; and Elizabeth is forever ashamed of her family’s vulgar manners and connections (so much so, that she expects Darcy to ignore her aunt and uncle at Pemberley).  Based on your reading of the book, what are Austen’s views on class?  Does the novel preserve class distinctions through Elizabeth’s actions…or does she radically contest these very notions?  In other words, how conservative was Austen, the parson’s daughter?